New York businesses are cheering Christo and Jeanne Claude’s The Gates. “City officials said they expected tens of thousands of people to show up for the exhibition, which is to be up for only 16 days, and whose $20 million cost is being borne exclusively by the artists. By the time the 7,500 gates are taken down in two weeks, the city expects to generate $80 million in business, with $2.5 million in city taxes alone, according to the city’s Economic Development Corporation.”
Blog
Putting Grammy On A Diet
There are too many Grammy awards. 107, to be exact, as compared with 28 for the supposedly interminable Oscars. And while every single one of those awards probably has its defenders, there is little question that the ceremony is in desperate need of a hatchet job. To begin with, isn’t it time to dump most (if not all) of the classical catagories? “Classical musicians aren’t wrong to feel slighted in a culture addicted to base pop music. But the current arrangement seems mainly therapeutic, like a teacher giving every kid a gold star just for coming to class.” And on the pop side of the ledger, do we really need a Best Album, a Best Record, a Best Pop Vocal Album, and a Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album?
NYC Comedians To Get A Hard-Fought Raise
Cable TV has made stand-up comedy into something of a glamorous profession in recent years. But for those struggling comics without development deals and HBO specials, stand-up is a tough way to make a living, with many New York clubs paying only $20 to $75 a set. So earlier this winter, the Big Apple’s comedians banded together to demand better pay from club owners, and to threaten retaliation if their demands weren’t met. And the funny thing is, they actually won.
Welsh National Opera Ups The Stakes With New Home
The Welsh National Opera is moving into a big new home – the Welsh Millennium Center. Hopes are high the move will help restore the company’s fortunes. WNO has “endured a number of setbacks in recent seasons: several flops, the unpopular organisational overhaul and the “sudden departure” last summer of the inexperienced young music director Tugan Sokhiev among them. Is the long-serving general director Anthony Freud thinking of moving on? Can the magnificent facilities of the WMC restore the company’s fortunes?”
The Museum Of 20th Century Kitchenware?
Toronto is planning a major new museum for its Harbourfront district to celebrate the city’s cultural history. “Its core collection will be the more than 100,000 items ranging from 18th-century military uniforms to 20th-century industrial moulds, kitchenware and advertising signs amassed by the City of Toronto and currently stored in an unmarked building near the CNE. For the museum to open by its target date of 2010, council has to budget about $200,000 over two years for the formation of a governing board, determination of a site, and the planning of a Humanitas festival showcasing the creative energy of the city in 2006 that will move the consultant’s plan forward.”
The Gates Open
One by one, on a sunny Saturday morning in winter, 7,500 huge ribbons of saffron-colored fabric were released from their bonds and turned New York’s Central Park into a blaze of color, courtesy of the installation artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. “Like all projects by this duo, ‘The Gates’ is as much a public happening as it is a vast environmental sculpture and a feat of engineering… The gates need to be – they are conceived to be – experienced on the ground, at eye level, where, as you move through the park, they crisscross and double up, rising over hills, blocking your view of everything except sky, then passing underfoot, through an underpass, or suddenly appearing through a copse of trees, their fabric fluttering in the corner of your eye.”
The Classical Grammys
The New York Philharmonic’s recording of John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls won Classical Album of the Year, Best Orchestral Performance, and Best Classical Contemporary Composition at the 47th Grammy Awards…
Million Dollar Misdirection
The furor over a controversial plot twist in Clint Eastwood’s new film, Million Dollar Baby, is just the latest example of shrill right-wing protestors trying to impose their own values system on everyone else, says Frank Rich. But who would ever have thought that Eastwood – a man’s man if ever Hollywood had one – would find himself targeted in such a manner? “What really makes these critics hate Million Dollar Baby is not its supposedly radical politics – which are nonexistent – but its lack of sentimentality. It is, indeed, no Rocky, and in our America that departure from the norm is itself a form of cultural radicalism. Always a sentimental country, we’re now living fulltime in the bathosphere.”
The Jazz Grammys
Pianist McCoy Tyner, vocalist Nancy Wilson, and pianist Herbie Hancock were among the jazz musicians winning Grammy Awards…
Defying Category: Meredith Monk
“At age 62, Meredith Monk has 40 years of category-defying works that combine film, choreography, and voice-based tapestries that traffic in life-defining experiences. Her simplicity of musical means suggests, in the words of one critic, folk music for a civilization that hasn’t been invented yet. (Her detractors compare her music to high-toned commercials for Meow Mix.)”